A little quality time with Matt Hasselbeck

That's the best song lyric I could come up with. I mean what am I going to use John Sebastian's "Welcome Back." I'm more of an Eminem-type guy, and a little shady, just not slim.

Yep, after a long hiatus and a summer spent covering perhaps the most inept, unproductive, unentertaining, uninteresting team in baseball, I'm back helping out Eric in Seahawksville. I was a little worried about not covering much of training camp, but since the whole team has basically changed I don't feel so bad.

In fact, for a moment I thought the Bing logos were changed to nametags.

Help us deliver journalism that makes a difference in our community.

Our journalism takes a lot of time, effort, and hard work to produce. If you read and enjoy our journalism, please consider subscribing today.

He actually quote the pillar of verbosity Walter Jones when asked if he's gotten to know all the new guys that have come in the last week.

"Just the guys I need to know," Hasselbeck joked. "No, I mean. I got the offense down."

Hmm, well I would hope he knows the left tackle that will be protecting his backside on Sunday.

That would be Tyler Polumbus - who will have all of a week's worth of practice before he gets the start against the 49ers.

"If you are a quarterback and worried about the offensive line, you're probably not going to be successful," Hasselbeck said. "I've got all kinds of faith that those guys will get their job done. Where my focus is going to be is a little mmore on the defense, on our receivers, our tight ends and our running backs."

So is there anything he can do to help out?

"The thing I can do to help those guys is enunciate clearly in the huddle," he said. "These are new plays to all of us and a new snap count and all that kind of stuff. But I'm not worried about those guys."

Hasselbeck didn't seemed concerned or stunned by all the roster turnover.

"It's no surprise," he said. "I think everyone knew that this thing could happen. Right from the jump, Pete talked about the three different times of transition."

Hmm, he did mention the loss of T.J. Houshmandzadeh and the production from that position. But he hoped that Golden Tate will help fill that void.

"At some point, we need Golden Tate to step up and be a playmaker for us," Hasselbeck said. "We drafted him for that reason. He's one of those guys we are counting on."

Eric mentioned to Hasselbeck this quote from after the Minnesota game:

"We've made a huge emphasis on, it's all about the football, no turnovers," Hasselbeck said. "And there's a fine line there I'm finding myself where it's yes, no turnovers. But at the same time you really got to let loose and cut it loose at times, too. And I think that's part of the growing process. And that's something I'm going to critique hard on myself and see where I can improve."

Well, Hasselbeck kind of had a different feeling about that now.

"I probably take back what I said after watching the film," he said. "I felt like we didn't score enough touchdowns or we weren't explosive enough. After watching the film and also just hearing Pete's general philosophy that it's all about the football, offensively and defensively. It really is true to who we are. We care a lot about our turnover ratio. We know all about it. We talk about it every Thursday. We watch film about it every Thursday."

Hasselbeck then proceeded to list of the 49ers turnover ratio from last year(+6) and from this preseason (+1) and that the first team offense hasn't turned it over once this preseason and that the running backs have yet to fumble in practice.

Hmm, he did fail to mention that the first team offense is also seven thee and outs in 16 possessions.

About the Seahawks Insider Blog

Gregg Bell joined The News Tribune in July 2014. Bell had been the director of writing for the University of Washington's athletic department for four years. He was the senior national sports writer in Seattle for The Associated Press from 2005-10, covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season and beyond. He's also been The Sacramento Bee's beat writer on the Oakland Athletics and Raiders. The native of Steubenville, Ohio, is a 1993 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and a 2000 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.